Looking for something free to do next time you're in Dublin?
Custom House Visitor Centre re-opens tomorrow
Looking for something free to do next time you're in Dublin? Check out the 226-year old Custom House, thevisitor centre of which reopens tomorrow, Thursday 16 March, 2017.
Admission is free and the opening hours will be Thursday and Friday 14.00 to 16.00 and Saturday, Sunday and Public Holidays 11.30 to 16.30.
The Custom House was the architectural masterpiece of James Gandon and was completed in 1791 after a ten-year construction period.
The Visitor Centre itself is an example of some of finest neo-classical architecture in Europe. The re-opening of the Visitor Centre is part of a longer term project to provide improved public access to one of the finest buildings in Dublin in the context of the Decade of Centenaries.
The current exhibition outlines the history of the Custom House and describes events in the building during Easter Week 1916.
It looks at the history of the Custom House and its occupants from then until 1921, when the building was completely destroyed by fire during the War of Independence.
The location and status of the Custom House would suggest a significant role in the Easter Rising. It stands directly across from Liberty Hall (which was the base of the Irish Citizen Army) and beside Butt Bridge (the then last crossing-point of the Liffey), it’s a short walk from Trinity College and it’s fewer than 400m from the GPO itself.
Nevertheless the Custom House does not feature strongly in the historical narrative.
The exhibition considers this and other fascinating links between the Custom House and a variety of historical events of the period. It is intended to expand the exhibition throughout the decade to illustrate the prominent role of the Custom House during that particular period in Ireland’s history.
The four main elements of the exhibition are:
· Gandon, telling the story of the architect James Gandon and the construction of the Custom House with his desk as part of the exhibition
· The Custom House and 1916, including the story of some Local Government staff dismissed for participating in the Rising, Bureau of Military History statements of prisoners held in the Custom House after the Rising, and activity in the area of the Custom House during the Rising
· Met Éireann’s ‘weather-themed’ room looks at the development of scientific meteorology in Ireland with a special focus on the weather of Easter Week 1916 and the weather on 25 May 1921, when the Custom House was attacked. One of the entries in the Met Éireann log notes that ‘Owing to the disturbances in Dublin the observations were not taken from 24th to end of month”, the period of the 1916 Rising
· The Custom House Fire 1921, covering the events of 25 May 1921 and the subsequent restoration.
Some of the well-known former staff of the Custom House include entertainer Percy French who was an Inspector of drainage schemes under the Board of Works; novelist and humourist Brian O’Nolan aka Myles na gCopaleen and novelist Maurice Walsh whose short story, The Quiet Man was the plot for the classic John Ford film.